154th REPORTER: TELCO PRICES MUST GO UP IF SINGAPOREANS WANT FASTER INTERNET

[makapaaa]

[h=1]STRAITS TIMES REPORTER: TELCO PRICES MUST GO UP IF SINGAPOREANS WANT FASTER INTERNET :oIo:[/h]
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16 Aug 2014 - 1:03pm





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A story was published on the Straits Times today claiming that there was no choice but for Telcos here to raise their prices; 'No way but up for mobile plan prices in Singapore', (16 Aug).

The writer, Irene Tham, was defending SingTel's recent announcement that its mobile plans would be increasing in price.

(Full story: SingTel raises prices for mobile plans again with bundled 2GB of Wifi)
Ms Tham wrote that following SingTel's decision to raise its prices, other Telcos M1 and StarHub are also likely to increase their prices.

She claimed that Singapore's market was "saturated" and so Telco's were having trouble making more money.

By this, she meant that there are not likely to be any "new" customers as there is already a 150% penetration rate in terms of mobile use.

Practically everyone, even young children have their own mobile phones, some people have more than 1 phone. There are 8.3 million mobile lines connected right now in Singapore for the population of only 5.3 million.

Based on this, Ms Tham claims that the only way to increase profits was to charge more for the use of Telco services to the existing customers.

Overall, the article read as though Singaporeans should just accept constantly increasing mobile charges as "there is no other choice".

What the article completely ignored was that Telcos should be making more money by innovating and finding new ways to cut costs.

It seems impossible for the Telcos in Singapore to claim that they face high costs, as there are only 3 Telcos in Singapore and the largest ones enjoy huge market share.
The actual costs of setting up mobile services to cover the whole of Singapore should be very low compared to other, more spread out countries.



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While other countries do have higher populations than Singapore, Telcos there have to deal with the huge costs associated with laying new lines all over the country just to be able to cover their customers. Populations are spread out and so their infrastructure costs are multiple times greater than what Telcos in Singapore face. On top of this, there tend to be more than just 3 mobile companies.
How can it be that Singapore Telcos are facing "high costs"?

It would seem that the Telcos here are not interested in really competing with each other. Probably because they can all enjoy high profits if they just silently agree not to lower their prices to edge out the others.

It is not only the base mobile plans which are seeing price increases, all the Telcos also increased their excess data charges after they started seeing customers using more WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook to communicate with others instead of SMSs and Phone calls like they used to.

Telcos are also hiding their increased costs such as by bundling various items together to make it look like they are offering better value with the increase in price. However there are also hidden fees such as "waived" value-add fees that the company could later decide to cease waiving while you're in your contract.

Instead of local telco companies competeing to take more customers from each other by offering better deals, they seem to just be following each other's actions to raise prices, claiming that it is "inevitable" in the mean time, it is Singaporeans who suffer as there are no alternatives but to pay for the ever increasing charges.

 

[makapaaa]

<form class="closeButtonAfterLogin" id="u_0_1i" action="#" method="post"><input name="lsd" type="hidden" value="AVqcjfcf" autocomplete="off"><label class="uiCloseButton" for="u_0_8"><input title="Report" id="u_0_8" aria-label="Report" type="submit" value="Submit Query"></label></form>KS Neoh · Top Commenter · University of MalayaGreed truly has no limits ! Singtel just made $800+ million in profits last quarter, and still not enough ? How much is enough, btw ? It probably costs no more than $50,000 to make a gold-plated coffin, so how many generations of gold-plated coffins do these Telco directors want ?

The root cause of all these troubles is that the government is both the regulator and the player. Don't tell me there are 3 telcos in Singapore. Look who are on the board ? Who are the big shareholders ? All PAP folks. Where is competition ? Just 2 sets of wayang stages. The same goes with our public transport...SMRT and SBS..two sides of the same coin.

I don't know whether those guys up there are really human beings, or they have totally sold their conscience to mammon. Increasing money intake to them is not much different from the nobles of Rome watching their gladiators kill one another, for their own pleasure and monetary stakes. What is the point of Pioneers Generation Package, GST package, etc ..... it is just one grand wayang to fool the people.

It has always been claimed that these superheroes (and shameless heroine) of the telcos are so capable that they must be paid millions and zillions. If they are so good, and they want more money, then go offshore and look for opportunities instead if hiding under their mothers' sarongs.

 

[scroobal]

Irene Tham is part of an organisation that has consistently demonstrated that it will do anything to please the government as well companies associated with family members of the ruling PAP.

Even FIFA which is a thousand miles in Zurich has realised that these idiots in Singapore Telco have tied themselves in a knot and took advantage of the whole country. First the father Yong Pung How damaged the judiciary which new entrants are trying to repair, his daughter also doing the same thing in IDA. To make matters, the PM's son has been engaged in her Department.

Why should Singaporeans suffer for years because of the Lee and Yong clans over a friendship fostered in Cambridge over borrowed notes.

 

[quelone]

We've had it, prices are starting to rise again and am just waiting for an increase in GST.

 

[mojito]

If no price increase in sg, how to raise money buy indian company and give them discounts there? :oIo:

 

[sochi2014]

Monopoly and oglipoly is bad! Angmo country da best!

The government aims by 2018 to achieve uniform broadband with a download speed of at least 50 megabites per second.

Work to overhaul Germany's internet provision began in 2000, with a €50-billion injection of funds. A further €4.4 billion was spent on a second phase in 2010. The current and third phase now aims to eliminate stark contrasts in internet speeds in cities and rural areas.

According to the newspaper, 81 percent of urban areas already have this speed, compared with only 18 percent of rural areas.

As impressive as the pledges sound, they are taking place amid €2 billion in funding cuts to funding for the IT sector overall.

"This also affects the federal broadband office, which used to get more money," a Transport Ministry official said.

But even as finances fluctuate, the ministry said it will still launch a €100-million fund next year to promote digital innovation.

Internet cover in many of Germany's regions remains patchy and is a major source of irritation for inhabitants.

Galvanized into action by poor download speeds, the 640 residents of the tiny Northern Friesland village of Löwenstedt this year even launched their own super-fast internet service after clubbing together to raise the funds.

Data files that used to take two hours to load on home and business computers now appear in just 30 seconds.

But the initiative did not come cheap: A local firm had to raise more than €2.5 million from its 925 shareholders to build their own fibre-optic network.

 

[Dokken]

Since when it's fast?